Page 28 of A Spell for Midwinter’s Heart

The deck had been swept clean, and comfortable-looking chairs surrounded a metal firepit already glowing with burning logs.

It was all arranged over a thick rug in a black-and-white sunburst pattern, and heavy woolen blankets in earth tones were available in a wicker basket by the door.

A wood-fired oak barrel sauna radiated in a corner.

“Too bad I didn’t bring my suit,” mused Rowan as she settled into a chair next to the fire.

“That’s never stopped anyone from a sauna,” said Gavin with a chuckle. He scrambled to follow up with “There are towels. I didn’t mean to suggest…”

But it was too late. She was already blushing. Towels didn’t alter the equation significantly—they were, after all, flimsy things, prone to gaping or even slipping off entirely. They could be removed so much more easily than a swimsuit.

She shoved a bite of potatoes into her mouth to cover the thought. They were perfect—crisp on the outside, the normally mealy interior of the potato rendered rich and smooth.

“This is delicious,” she said, spearing another potato. “And refreshingly normal.”

“Normal?” asked Gavin, as he settled into the chair next to her.

“Yeah, you didn’t try to sous vide me an egg or something…Sorry, I went on some dates with this guy who ‘liked to cook,’ and what it really meant was he enjoyed collecting cooking gadgets. ”

“Mmm. I know the type. Food’s a project, not a meal.”

“Bingo.”

His eyes danced as he said, “So, if I admit I own a sous vide, is the whole thing off?”

Laughing, she shook her head. “It’s clear you are in it for more than the gadgets, so I think we can let that slide.”

The forest was old here. Stately evergreens towered overhead, their boughs covered with clinging piles of snow.

Now and then, there was a crack, and a cascade fell from one of those boughs in a sheet.

Rowan closed her eyes and breathed it in, realizing how good it was to stop and simply enjoy a moment.

When they’d cleared their plates, she sighed in contentment and said, “Thank you for bringing me out here.”

“I had a feeling you needed it.” He paused before continuing, “To be honest—I needed it too.”

“Speaking of not relaxing, though…” She pulled out her phone and scooted her chair to smash it next to his. “Look at what Zaide, Naomie, and Kel have been up to.”

They had added more posts since the morning.

A clip from the vintage puppet theater was the most recent.

It featured the hand-painted Santa dueling a grinning Krampus over the fate of a bag of presents beneath a red velvet curtain corded with gold.

The audience of children squealed in delight, along with a hopping crow.

“I didn’t realize the festival had any social media,” said Gavin.

“It didn’t—until last night. Naomie’s driven a lot of traffic to it already.”

“Naomie LeGrand? I didn’t realize you two were friends.”

“We didn’t use to be, but I’ve known her grandmother, Birdie, my whole life…

” Rowan hesitated before mentioning the old woman’s participation in the coven.

Her mother’s warning flashed in her mind, and instead she simply said, “Birdie was my grandmother’s best friend.

” At the mention of her grandmother, her voice caught.

Her grief must have been noticeable because his face softened. “You two were close?”

“She and I had a lot in common. Things…no one else really understands.”

A new dimension of her grief revealed itself in that moment—not a new feeling, just one she now had the words to understand. When you lost a person, you lost not only them; you lost who you were to them.

Granddaughter, confidante, partner in magics most foul.

“She could be frustrating,” she finally continued, “but then…I guess so can I.”

“Better to frustrate people being who you are than hide yourself to avoid ruffling feathers.”

“You should tell that to my mom,” she said with a sigh. His forehead wrinkled and his eyes sharpened, and Rowan rushed to defend her mother. “I don’t mean to say that she criticizes everything I do. We just have a few…philosophical differences.”

From his expression, it was clear he didn’t buy her justifications.

How did he always see right through her?

Trying to move the conversation on, Rowan lifted the phone and flashed the image of the festival’s feed. “Mom was totally against this. I don’t know how we’re going to convince her of more…drastic changes.”

“Mmm.” Gavin stood, pacing across the deck.

His brow furrowed, and his hand rose to his chin in an expression she recognized as his “chasing down a line of thinking” look.

“I’ve been thinking…The other day, my father made an offhand comment about how the festival grounds sit empty for most of the year. ‘Washing money down the drain.’?”

“There’s the farmer’s market during the growing months,” said Rowan. “And the summer concert series.” The summer tourism season wasn’t as dense as the winter, but there was always a steady stream of city people passing through on their way to the great outdoors.

“True,” he said, “but that’s only on the weekends, and there’s still half a year of nothing.”

Rowan got to her feet, popping a finger into her mouth and hooking a fingernail between her front teeth.

This line of thinking had promise. What could they propose for the grounds?

Not something too dramatic, or they’d have to take down all the permanent structures.

The decor would probably have to be interchangeable, but hopefully not the basic layout.

She walked to the edge of the deck, propping her arms onto the rail and leaning against it as she mulled it over. A moment later, Gavin came to settle beside her.

“Don’t fall,” he warned, voice oddly wistful.

She played at leaning farther out, belly to the rail, and he looped his hands around her middle and pulled her back with a spin so that he could look in her eyes. Pressed chest to chest, she soaked in the feeling of his heart beating, the strength of his hands on her body.

The familiar quality of his features caught her off guard—the ridge line of his brow, the slight crook of his nose, the small scar over his lip, whose groove ended exactly where her finger expected.

One could almost think she’d spent years studying that face; that it had maddeningly commanded attention across classrooms and assembly halls as she tried to break down the arithmetic of his masculine beauty.

She ran her thumb along the speckled stubble of his jaw and lifted onto her toes to press her lips to his.

It was a long, savoring kiss, gentle in its exploration of the curve of lips.

Tongue caressed tongue, and she slid her hands into his jacket to run them up and down his chest. His fingers explored the bottom of her sweater, traveling inside to where they caressed the bare flesh of her back.

Heat gathered in the center of her body. Every light of the world had lit up, like she was readying for a spell, but he overwhelmed her sight, and in the places where they touched, his vital lines seemed to join with hers in a seamless exchange of energy.

The longer they kissed, the more that energy mounted. And when she finally pulled away, it released.

Rowan tensed, afraid of what she might have done—what she might have once more unknowingly cast—but then a branch cracked, sending snow tumbling to the ground in a playful eddy.

It settled over a collection of small, brightly colored houses with triangular peaks arranged at the base of the old and thickest of the fir trees. Someone had carefully tended the snow to keep them from being swallowed in the drifts.

“Are those elf houses?” asked Rowan.

Gavin followed her eyes and nodded. “Grandmother Ana’s. Her parents brought them when they emigrated from Iceland.”

“Do you think she would mind if I…?” But Rowan didn’t wait for an answer. She all but leaped down the stairs, Gavin at her heels.

Falling to her knees in the snow, she peeked inside the first of the houses. The interior twinkled with discarded candy wrappers. She pulled a candy cane left from her shift at the festival out of her pocket and tucked it inside.

“I don’t know how it isn’t overflowing by now,” said Gavin with a chuckle. “Everyone wants to leave something.”

Rowan withdrew her hand from the house and turned around, opening her fingers to show him what had been inside. Empty wrappers—a collection of holidays past. There were Cadbury egg foils and shells of gold leprechaun coins, bat-shaped Reese’s and mooncake bags stamped with lotuses.

They were all empty.

Gavin wasn’t impressed. “Grandpa Peter must eat them when she isn’t looking.”

“Or maybe…” murmured Rowan with a smile.

“Maybe little men climb out of the trees to eat cheap candy?”

Trying to pin down a thought, Rowan murmured, “It’s not the quality of the gift, it’s the giving.

It’s the giving they appreciate.” She returned to her thoughts.

Something tugged at the edge of her consciousness, wanting to be considered.

Her mouth opened wide as the idea came into clarity. “More holidays.”

“What?” asked Gavin.

She was tingling as she said, “There are more holidays.”

“Yes…” said Gavin, slightly amused. “That’s true.”

She swiped a bit of snow off the roof of the nearest elf house and tossed it at him. “So, what if we had more festivals?”

“More holiday festivals,” he murmured, turning it over. “That’s got legs…”

She paced in front of the elf houses. “For the fall, we could go totally spooky. The Carnival of the Dead. Samhain, Día de Los Muertos, Obon…Oh! For spring, we’d kick things off with Holi…”

Gavin had been nodding along at first, but the more she said, the more he grew neutral. “What?” she asked.

He chose his words carefully. “I’m trying to imagine my father reacting to this. Because he’s the one we need to convince. For the fall festival, he’s going to ask about Oktoberfest. Pumpkin patches, beer steins, hayrides…crowd pleasers.”

“I mean, we’d do some of that, sure…But there’s already a huge Oktoberfest in Leavenworth.” She failed to disguise the annoyance in her voice.

“It doesn’t need to be that exactly. The point is: You need to think a little more mainstream with him, and probably also to be sure these new festivals bring in crowds. And Elk Ridge needs crowds.”

She hiked back to the deck, arms shoved over her chest. “I understand that is…safer. But isn’t there something to be said for being a unique concept? Something that sets you apart? A ‘clear brand identity’?”

Gavin chuckled. “Convincing me isn’t the same as convincing him. It might work, but it will need to come in a very shiny package—”

Thinking of Zaide’s masterful branding designs, she said, “I know exactly who to ask to help with that.”

“—And at least the beginnings of a business plan. Projected costs…not to mention an idea of who’s going to execute it all.”

“Oh.” That stopped Rowan in her tracks. Who was going to sign on for that? Her mom was already beyond overloaded. She wrapped her arms around her chest in a sudden chill, shivering.

“You’re cold.” He was there, close, in a heartbeat. “I’ll remind you there’s a hot sauna right there.”

Once again, her thoughts went to towels, and how quickly they might fall away.

“I suppose it would be a shame to let it go to waste.”

“And we can keep up these conversations inside…If that’s what you want.”

She hesitated. “That might prove a bit of a challenge.”

“You can go in by yourself if you’re more comfortable with that,” he said, misinterpreting her hesitation.

She got in close, looking up at his face. “I never said that…Do you want to go with me?”

His voice was low as he said, “Very much so.”